Ready to Strap Your Business to a Jet?

More and more sellers are finding value in Jet.

With more than 400,000 users, Jet is more than just airborne. In the highly competitive world of online marketplaces, it’s soaring.

For some sellers, adding another online sales outlet may not be worth the effort. But if you believe in multichannel marketing for both the new opportunities and the hedge it creates against being dependent on a single retailer — hello, Amazon — you should put some serious thought into selling your products on Jet.

First, what is Jet and how is it different?

Jet is an online marketplace that counts urban millennials as its fastest growing demographic. It has more than 2,400 retailers and third-party sellers (referred to as partners) selling on its platform.

Jet positions itself as a marketplace that is fair for both buyers and sellers because it delivers both lower prices for shoppers and higher per-item profits for suppliers. Unlike Amazon, Jet is also not competing with the companies that sell on its by carrying products itself. It is a platform — not a retailer.

The company claims that its system — a proprietary one — matches sellers and buyers efficiently. Shoppers on Jet choose the items they want and Jet, in turn, selects the seller based on a variety of factors, including the size of the shopper’s basket, location, the location of item and whether products can be shipped from the same warehouse, and options such as whether the consumer will accept making the purchase without the possibility of a return.

Got all that? If it sounds a bit like online dating, you’re not that far off. The secret sauce is in the appropriate matching of sellers with buyers, in a way that maximizes cost efficiency. When that happens, everyone wins — buyers get the best possible deals and sellers enjoy the best margins.

Jet and flexible pricing.

Another feature of Jet is Order Profitability Control. Even with the unwieldy moniker, many sellers use it to offer customers different pricing under the Jet Rules Engine. The Jet Rules Engine — all these three-word names — lets sellers offer different prices to different customers to make a purchase more appealing.

So what does this Jet Rule Engine weigh? Well, there’s customer order size (discounts for buying in bulk), distance from the fulfillment center (if the buyer lives close to the warehouse, shipping costs are lower and sellers can make the purchase more enticing by passing on those savings), the ability to return an item (buyers who are willing to take on the risk of not being able to make a return get a discount), and marketing opt-ins (buyers who accept promotional emails will save money).

Whew. If it all sounds a bit like flea market haggling done online, you wouldn’t be totally wrong. But the reality is that it’s about using technology being to optimize the selling process and create the best possible transactions. Successful Jet sellers like it because it allows them to offer what are essentially incentives to customers. Jet also, unlike Amazon, allows sellers to capture buyer email information to build a database that can bolster future sales.

Make the complicated simple.

Just thinking about managing sales on Jet is enough to make some suppliers decide there are better ways to spend their time. But don’t rule it out — with some attention and the right product mix, Jet can be a very profitable channel.

For suppliers, the sprawling online marketplace is full of opportunities and pitfalls. To keep it under control, make sure you have a system in place that lets you bring all your orders together — whether the software is being used as a standalone or is integrated into an ERP like NetSuite, accounting software like QuickBooks, inventory software, or WMS.

With control comes power, and when your orders are all in one place and information is flowing seamlessly, you will feel powerful indeed. Our Lingo software is built to manage all your orders no matter where you get them — online marketplaces, EDI transactions with traditional retailers, eCommerce stores. Not matter where you sell it, we can help you keep track of it all, and we have a connector for Jet that makes the process simple and allows you to merge information easily.